Apsara

Apsara was founded in 1992, the year Latvia restored its independence, by Ikars Keišs — a starting point the company still frames as the moment Eastern and Western tea traditions met Latvia's own herbal-brewing habits. In 2000 the parent company, Bargi Ltd., spun the brand off into its own entity, Apsara Ltd., to develop it further; the business has run its own blending and packaging factory in Riga since.

Apsara buys tea and ingredients from China, India, Sri Lanka, Japan, Indonesia, Kenya, Brazil, South Africa, the EU and Latvia itself, giving it one of the more geographically varied supply lines among Baltic tea houses. Since 2014 the company has pushed its range further toward health-focused blends, describing its teas as made only from natural spices and herbs with no artificial additives — a shift the company frames as a deliberate repositioning rather than an original founding premise.

The brand's retail home, Apsara tējas namiņš, sits on Brīvības gatve, selling the factory's own blends alongside its international sourcing. More than three decades after a single entrepreneur's independence-year start, Apsara remains a Latvian-run, Latvian-blended operation rather than a distributor of someone else's tea.